Effect of short-term controlled atmospheres and maturity on ripening and eating quality of tomatoes
Introduction
One of the main problems with fresh consumption of tomatoes in Australia is that the fruit are perceived to lack flavour, both in taste and aroma (McGlasson et al., 1982, Dyke, 1993). Many of the problems associated with this are related to maturity and/or ripeness stage at harvest (Kader et al., 1977). Vine-ripe fruit are considered to have a better flavour, but fruit at this stage is easily damaged during harvesting and postharvest handling. Thus it is common commercial practice for fruit to be harvested at the mature green or partially ripe stage and then ripened with or without ethylene before or during marketing (Bisogni et al., 1976, McGlasson et al., 1982).
It has been shown that postharvest treatments using short-term controlled atmospheres (CA) or exposure of fruit to volatile compounds such as AA or EtOH can improve the flavour of several fruit and maintain quality. For example, CA treatments can improve the flavour of strawberries (Pesis and Avissar, 1990), feijoas (Pesis et al., 1991), and citrus (Shaw et al., 1990). High CO2 has improved the taste of apples (Pesis et al., 1994). Short exposure to AA or EtOH has been claimed to improve taste and increase sugar levels of tomatoes (Paz et al., 1981). However, Paz et al. (1981)presented no statistical measures for sugar content, and flavour acceptability, when analysed statistically, was not significantly different between treatments; the one least significant difference presented for hedonic flavour differences was the same for three different fruit. Therefore this study can not be considered as reliable. Another study on tomatoes found that 2–4 ml kg−1 EtOH for 2 h extended the ripening time for fruit at a number of maturity stages by up to 1 week, while an informal taste test found no difference (Saltveit and Sharaf, 1992). However, again this study was not very convincing as no data were presented for the taste test and fruit were of a poor quality with a low sugar content. Ripening was also inhibited by 0.2–0.4% AA for 24 h, but the effect on taste was not reported (Pesis and Marinansky, 1993).
AA and EtOH were induced by short term low O2 or high CO2 in breaker tomatoes (Klieber et al., 1996) and their levels peaked one day after and on removal to air, respectively. Ripening was delayed by the treatments, but by the time fruit were eating ripe, AA and EtOH levels were similar to control levels. We therefore investigated whether AA and EtOH induction by short term high CO2 and low O2 treatments at 22°C could be manipulated by using different ripening stages, whether AA and EtOH persisted differently in different ripening stages, and whether the aroma and flavour of tomatoes cv. `Bermuda' could be improved by these treatments.
Section snippets
Fruit
Mature green, breaker and pink tomatoes (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill., cv. Bermuda) were hand-picked from commercial producers in Helidon or Gatton areas, Southeast Queensland, Australia. Fruit were transported to the laboratory for cleaning and drying at room temperature. Healthy fruit of uniform appearance were carefully matched and treated in flow-through humidified gas (RH 70%) containing 21% O2, 0.5% O2+N2 for 1 day, or 80% CO2+air for 1 or 2 days. All fruit were treated on the day of
Volatile production
Control samples stored in air did not produce detectable levels of AA or EtOH and fruit became eating ripe by 4 to 8 days after harvest, depending on the maturity stage at harvest (Table 1). A 1 day low O2 treatment induced AA and EtOH production. Peak production levels increased significantly with harvest maturity from 52 to 123 μl kg−1 h−1 for EtOH and from 13 to 62 μl kg−1 h−1 for AA from mature green and pink fruit, respectively. Both volatiles dissipated to undetectable levels in 3–5 days
Discussion
Ripening time declined in all treatments with increasing harvest maturity. However, the ripening delay experienced by breaker stage fruit due to the altered atmosphere was less in the present study than found by Klieber et al. (1996); also, the relative ripening delay between treatments compared to the control varied with maturity. The delay in ripening is believed to be due to the EtOH content of the tissues (Saltveit and Sharaf, 1992). Ripening was also inhibited by exposure to 0.2–0.4% AA
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